Can the GOP Platform Support the Biggest Elephant in the Room?

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Amid the theatrics of the nominating conventions, it's easy to forget that one of the central goals behind the dog-and-pony show is much wonkier. In the run-up to the conventions, party delegates have been working to reach consensus on issues before they formally adopt their platform, the party's quadrennial statement of principles.

Faced with a standard-bearer who is alternately contemptuous of, indifferent to or plain unaware of the GOP's core beliefs, the committee chose to double-down on its 2012 platform, widely considered to be the party's most conservative, in the draft of this year's statement.

Given that the party's nominee has already shat upon many of those principles in the abstract, the platform committee was essentially tasked with producing a ream of toilet paper for Donald Trump to actually wipe his ass with.

Asked by the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus if the platform mattered in "the age of Trump," Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, the committee's chair, said, "it matters in terms of being instructive to our nominee for president. I've talked to him and asked him to embrace it, and I believe that he will." (That's adorable!)

While Sen. Barrasso and the party faithful await Trump's embrace/Dementor's Kiss, here's a handy illustrated guide on where the party and its nominee diverge.